


The Cold Runs Through My Veins

by stilesinwonderland (itsabravenewworld)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 02:52:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1064883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsabravenewworld/pseuds/stilesinwonderland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Christmas time in Beacon Hills, and that's of course when the Yeti decides to show up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cold Runs Through My Veins

He had just been Christmas shopping for the pack at six at night, and that’s when his Jeep decided to break down in the middle of the road, to not start again. When he had gotten out to check, his car was flicked away like a toy by a huge monster. That resulted in running through the woods for ten minutes, dodging blows back and forth from an enormous clawed hand. And that’s how he is where he is now.

 

Stiles feels the bark of the tree before he actually slams into it, the warm, large palm forcing him back before it’s launched away from him. It jars his head and he barely shakes it enough to have his full sight back to gauge what exactly is going on. Scott is thrown back into a tree of his own after just saving Stiles from being crushed by a large fist, collapsing the trunk and making the top fall to the ground as he falls to the snow-filled ground in a furry heap, doesn’t move.

 

Stiles shudders and moves on the other side of the large mass, hoping to hide from the monstrous being heading right at him now that it has decided Scott wasn’t an issue for him anymore. The thing doesn’t really look like snow, a pure white like he’d imagined, or seen in his research. It’s more brown than that, with muddy looking fur, but with the snow sticking to it, it makes it white. Its teeth glisten and are so sharp they could probably use his fibula as a toothpick. He’s officially nicknamed it Uncle Buck (Bucky for short). It’s a feeble hope to think  won’t see him, but he still tries his best to stay still, crouched behind the tree.

 

He never was really good at that, anyways.

 

The Yeti tears at the trunk, ripping the roots right out of the ground, roaring so viciously and loudly, Stiles feels it in his feet that he had sworn were just frozen a second ago, the ones that he thought had lost the feeling from being so cold. Because really, it’s unreasonably cold, it’s freezing. He can’t really focus on his tingling-from-lack-of-warm-blood toes anymore though because the Yeti roars again, and he can barely dodge out of the way from its claws before it claws the next tree in half. And no, fuck that, man.

 

He begins to book it out of there, and his hoodie isn’t even zipped up, so the cold air and the bullets of falling snow against the front of his neck make him feel like his skin is on fire, but he keeps going, panting breaths visible in the frigid night air. Stiles feels the ground shaking under his feet, knows that the Yeti is chasing him, but he can barely see past the snow, barely avoiding the trees that are right in front of him.

 

Suddenly, he’s blindsided by a tree that he couldn’t see past the snow. He hits with a “oomph,” as it clips him in the side, and he stumbles, his hands sliding on the icy snow to catch himself. When he lifts his hands, they’re already blue from the second of touching it, shaking from the cold. “Shit, shit,” he races, but can hear that the Yeti is getting closer behind him, not even a few feet away.

 

He feels the stitch in his side being nearly torn out, but he moves, his heart pounding in his head and in his gut, it’s bouncing up and down with his strides. The growling behind him gets louder, steadily closer because the thing has legs that are at least four feet taller than him-- he feels like its been messing with him the entire time because it could have had him-- it should have had him.

 

“Scott!” He yells, feels like a damsel in distress screaming the way he is, but thinks that it’s a better alternative than being skewered by claws or eaten or made into a Stiles-popsicle. “Someone, I could use some help here, please!”

 

The Yeti stops chasing him for just a moment, looking around.  Stiles feels the lack of pounding against his feet and looks back, his teeth chattering. His sneakers are freezing, and now he realizes that the Yeti is actually bringing the cold with it. But when he looks to it, it’s just watching him now from a few feet back still, not making any advances, and Stiles frowns. “What?”

 

Then he hears the growling from all around them, and his breath is punched out of him with the sheer relief. He catches sight of the red alpha-eyes in the trees, and gives the eyes a two-finger salute. “Derek, cadets,” he says, and doesn’t see the Yeti advancing until it’s too late.

 

Stiles’s eyes widen comically, and he turns to run because suddenly the Yeti is barreling towards him, as if it were waiting for all of this, the distraction, to get him. The last thing he sees of the Yeti is its enormous paw, as it swats him in the back, the fingers and claws cuffing his right cheek, one of them digging into his shoulder and stinging sharply. He flies forward, trying to cover his face but really just ending up flailing his arms, and he hears the pack’s simultaneous, furious roars in response. “Stiles!” Someone yells, and he can't really tell who it is through the howling wind, but they sound furious, whoever they are.

 

He lands in a snowdrift with of a puff, the flakes parading around his limp body, and he slides , crashes into a slab of a large rock. It knocks him out cold, limbs askew in the drift.

 

********

For a long time, between bouts of waking up and shivering before passing out again, he dreams of Christmas trees, and flashing lights, swimming in his vision, just behind his eyelids. When he wakes up, what he sees is a lot less charming. “Hey Deaton,” he mumbles, groans when he tries to sit up. His foggy brain doesn’t register that he can’t move for a few seconds of light struggling, and it takes his mind a lot longer to figure out exactly why.  

 

“Are there multiple people cuddled on me right now?” He asks Deaton with a slurred voice. It doesn’t take him too long to determine that keeping his eyes closed is much better than opening them because his head feels like it’s being split in two. And he already kind of knows the answer already, so he doesn’t need to open them to make sure.

 

“Uh..” Deaton begins calmly. “It’s kind of a long story.”

 

“I have time,” Stiles says, because he can’t get up with all of the bodies on top of him. He starts rubbing at his temple, then his jaw, then winces almost violently from the pain that flares at the touch. “I was thrown into a tree. It hit me in the face when it was doing it so I probably have a bruise the size of Texas; I’ve got that much, so fill me in.”

 

Erica speaks somewhere down near his left armpit, much too loudly than he would like because it makes his entire skull throb in the back. "It threw you into the ice, so it just planned on freezing you and eating you later or something.”

 

“So we figured out that it controls the weather, right?”

 

“Well, it controlled the weather to make it cold, but that’s it,” and that was Isaac tucked against his legs.

 

“Controlled, as in?” He leaves the end open, and it’s Scott who speaks next.

 

“Yeah, Derek got him. He ripped that thing to pieces when he saw you get smacked. It ran and kept running after that. There’s no doubt it’s dead.” And he feels like there’s something that he’s missing, but his thinking isn’t up to par yet, so he lets it go.

 

Stiles groans in his throat because his entire body aches now that he’s fully awake. “How thoughtful,” he moans, “where is he anyways? And why are you all laying on me?” He’s jabbed in the side sharply as someone moves and he makes a pitiful pained noise.

 

“Sorry man,” Scott says. “Deaton, did you give him pain meds?”

 

“Double doses, they should be kicking in any second.”

 

“Good.” He can hear the clinking of medical equipment and the quiet sound of barking dogs in the other room.

 

Scott tells him, “You were nearly frozen when D-- when we got you out of the snow drift, and since we’re really warm, Deaton said it would be best to share all of our combined body heat to make sure you didn’t die of hypothermia.”

 

“You’re the best,” Stiles groans, because he’s really warm now, even at his feet that he realizes someone is holding to deliver their warmth to him (it’s probably Boyd, poor guy), and it’s wonderful. “But, did you guys not think about taking my pain away with your magic powers while you were at it?” And because he doesn’t want to seem like an asshole, he adds, “just while you were laying here and all.”

 

“We have been, dude,” Scott says, and Stiles can tell he’s pouting at him which is really not fair considering he’s the one who almost died, not Scott. “But it hurts after a few hours of doing it.”

 

“Fair enough,” Stiles admits eventually. “What I’m wondering though, is why it took you guys so long to show up after Scott called you.” He doesn’t get an answer at first, so he begins to get suspicious. “You called them.. right Scott?”

 

“Yeah, I totally called them!” Scott says, but his voice sounds guilty.

 

“You didn’t call them,” he deciphers, and he isn’t really mad yet, but he’s getting there, because he could have died since Scott was too lazy to howl once, or pull out his phone. “But then how did you guys know what was going on?” His mind starts putting the pieces together like a jagged puzzle, starting with his Jeep shutting down mysteriously, and his head flies up so fast that it makes him dizzy from the pain. He opens his eyes and says, “Wait. Don’t tell me.”

 

“Stiles--”

 

“My Jeep?” he hisses in betrayal. “You used me as bait, and let Bucky kill my baby?” Now there’s silence from all of them, and he’s seething because that either proves that he was right, or they’re confused with his nickname, but he decides it’s the former because it’s obvious who he’s talking about. They all begin to sit up, and Boyd is backing away from his feet, which is a smart move. Deaton is warning Stiles that he shouldn’t be moving yet, but he can’t think right now besides how royally pissed he is. “Where’s Derek?” he grits out.

 

“I’m here,” a voice rings out from the doorway, and all of their heads turn. Derek looks like he’s debating running, though his expression gives nothing away as he stands there motionless in the doorway. The rest of the werewolves and Deaton all excuse themselves from the room when Derek nods his head, and Derek allows them to pass, crossing his arms.

 

Stiles tries to calm himself down before he speaks; it barely works. “You sabotaged my Jeep.”

 

Derek saunters closer. “I did.”

 

Stiles’s hand hurts from clenching it closed so hard and from his exhaustion. He points at him, squinting one eye closed because his head hurts from sitting up for so long, and he probably isn’t very threatening right now. “You almost got me killed.”

 

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Derek says simply. He doesn’t look like he believes the words he’s saying, but conveys them with such frustration that it makes Stiles confused

 

“How was it not?” Stiles shivers. “When you left me alone in the woods with a Yeti, how was I not supposed to get hurt at all?”

 

“Scott was there,” Derek defends. “He was supposed to get you out of there and not get hurt himself. You were just there to get it into the open.”

 

“You counted on one werewolf being able to ward off a giant legendary monster?” Stiles really can’t believe any of the bullshit Derek is spewing at him right now. And that part about him only being useful as bait stings a little bit-- okay, it stings a lot. He cracks his jaw painfully, and tells Derek, “Get out of here, I can’t even deal with you right now.” His shivers have turned constant now, so he clasps his arms around his waist and huffs out warming breaths.

 

“Stiles,” Derek growls, but Stiles points at him and chokes out “Go,” so he stomps up the stairs, probably doing it on purpose so the noise drills into Stiles’s brain. Or maybe he’s just always that way and his sore head is just taking right then to notice it. He chooses to believe that Derek is searching for ways to cause him pain though; it fuels his hate-fire and keeps it burning, even if it’s just simmering low now because he’s too exhausted to be really angry anymore.

 

The door creaks open a moment later, and the footsteps are back, and Stiles resolves that he won’t even look at Derek because fuck him, but that plan is completely thrown when Derek shoves an extremely large fleece blanket into his hands. Derek doesn’t bother looking at him either, just leaves again, and while Stiles wraps the cloth around his shoulders, he yells “You owe me a new car!”

 

********

More painkillers are delivered, Stiles deals with Scott pandering over him, and he eventually determines that he needs to go home and get rest, and no he doesn’t need a hospital. “I’ll drive you home,” Scott tells him, and Stiles scowls at him because he was part of the whole plan that resulted in his car being totaled.

 

When he gets home, his dad is waiting for him, because oh yeah, he’s been gone for the whole night. John has much less of a panic than Stiles was expecting, and only grounds him for two weeks for wrecking his Jeep. The excuse of crashing from the heavy amounts of snow on the road is pretty unbelievable, but it’s the best he can come up with on the spot, and the Sheriff seems to detect that he’s lying, but can’t find another reason why his car would be wrecked.

 

So eventually, he goes to work with promises to call every two hours to check in on him, and tells him to make sure to answer his phone. Stiles nearly shoves him out of the door, promises to do just that, and leans against the door when he’s gone, tapping at the wood with his fist.

 

Stiles slumps into the shower and turns it hot because despite all the warmth the pack had provided him, and the two sweaters he was wearing, he could still feel a phantom chill in his bones. The shower helps, even though he can’t clean himself thoroughly enough since his skin hurts to the touch almost everywhere on his body, especially where the mud has stuck to him. He settles for standing under the spray, letting it run gently over his face and turning so it pans down his back.

 

When he looks at himself in the bathroom mirror, he cringes. The skin all on his right side is a dark purple, and still swollen; it makes him look like he’s half grape. Stiles wonders what the rest of him looks like. He sneezes, and his head swims dangerously, so he dresses as quickly as he can and sets himself up in bed with extra heavy pajama pants on and a long sleeved sweater with a hoodie on top.

 

He sets two alarms, answers Scott’s text and tells him that he’s taking a nap, and he needs to wake him up as a just-in-case. Deaton had told Stiles that he definitely had a concussion, but he still didn’t know how serious it was yet, and Stiles wanted to make sure that he still woke up. He slips into unconsciousness almost immediately after his head hits the pillow without waiting for an answer from his friend.

 

He wakes with a scream, thrashing in his blankets because his skin is on fire. No wait, he thinks, his skin is actually cold, so strikingly cold that it seems like his limbs are all iced together and that they can’t move. It burns and even his clothes are touching his skin in a painful way. The right side of his cheek is unbearable in the extremity of pain, he debates cutting it off. It hurts so badly that he shrieks again, desperately thrashing about on his bed.

 

The pain is so intense, and his breath is showing in the air of his own bedroom, but he can see the sun shining bright on the floor. He collapses, rolls off of the edge of his bed and moves, searching the warmth of the sun because he’s not even numb like someone who is freezing should feel; he feels everything from his head to his toes, and the throbbing of his heart is slowed down, but heavy in his chest. The sunlight doesn’t help him at all, and he ends up curled on the floor, trembling and holding onto his own feet even though his hands are just as cold, and whining in pain.

 

Stiles crawls back to his bed, pulls his phone down and texts the pack in a mass-text that reads “help” and then a full body shiver envelops him until his legs don’t support him anymore and he collapses back onto the ground with another shout. He doesn’t know how long he lays there, but it isn’t long before he hears his front door open and close quickly, loud.

 

His bedroom door crashes open with a slam, and it actually breaks off of one of its hinges not even half a minute later, tilting at an angle, and Stiles is looking straight at Derek, panting in his doorway in nothing but a t-shirt and jeans.

 

Derek looks manic, and his eyes widen at Stiles, whining on the floor and barely moving because he’s shivering so violently. He freezes in the doorway, his face doing a complicated scrunch, but Stiles says his name desperately, says, “Help,” and he’s walking into his room. Stiles is still rolled into a ball as Derek scoops him up with large hands under his thighs-- he can feel the heat of his body and he shudders.

 

“You’re cold,” Derek says in disbelief, even as Stiles clings to him like an octopus-- he lets Stiles dig his nose into Derek’s neck as he seeks relief from the chill and swears into the open air.

 

Stiles knows that he should feel really really awkward about all of this, the fact that he’s basically cuddling up to a werewolf that has, on multiple occasions, threatened his life, the same guy he’s been majorly crushing on since Scott had been bitten. The very same werewolf that he’s still monumentally pissed off at for letting this all happen, but he really can’t bother to care right now. He thinks whatever, because Derek’s skin is boiling and it feels good at the same time that it hurts him to touch.

 

“Derek,” he says, and his whole face hurts now, his lips are blue from the cold enveloping him. “That thing isn’t dead. There’s something wrong.” Icy shards of cold run up his body, and he jerks. Derek’s hands clench desperately onto him and keep him on his lap; he runs his hands over Stiles’s arms frantically. “It’s fucking freezing, dude.”

 

“Shit, I know,” Derek tells him and his eyebrows are furrowed, showing the only signs of worry that Stiles can see, “Your lips, they’re turning purple.” He’s growling through his teeth, creating a jarring rumble over Stiles’s side.

 

“I’m pretty sure all of me is purple,” Stiles jokes, and closes his mouth because when he spoke, he’d almost bitten his tongue off with his chattering teeth. His eyes clench closed.

 

“Stiles, you’re okay,” Derek mutters to him, and apparently Scott has finally shown up because he’s barking at him to go and get as many heated blankets as he can from the store, and Scott is running through the hall because he knows there’s already one in the hallway closet they can use. Derek wraps him in it, turns it to full power, and leaves him alone for a few moments. Stiles moans in pain and relief as his muscles are unfrozen underneath the fabric, clenching at it under his fingers, still on the floor.

 

“Derek.”

 

“What?” Derek says from a few feet away, and he’s back at Stiles’s feet from where he was probably pacing in front of the window, watching for something to come and try and kill them.  

 

His tongue feels lazy, and his feet are sweating from the strain of still being cold, resisting the heat penetrating his skin. “You,” he shivers, “You need to kill Bucky.”

 

“I plan on it.” And of course Derek doesn’t get what he’s saying because he sounds frustrated, and is still growling, like Stiles is wasting his time, like he already knew that. Which he does, but there’s something else, damn it, and Stiles grabs Derek’s arm before he can stand. On instinct, his fingers grapple at Derek’s, and the older man swallows, but Stiles ignores it because he’s suddenly in much more pain than before and he needs the touch.

 

“Now,” he wheezes as lines of cold rivet up his torso; they feel just like claws. “It’s got something; It’s like it’s inside of me. Claws.”

 

“Derek.” Scott sounds panicky, and Derek grunts. He doesn’t sound completely settled anymore either, though.

 

“Go, kill it,” he commands.

 

“Whad’you mean go kill it?” Stiles moans way too loudly, and knows he’ll be embarrassed later. Later, when he’s not feeling like he’s dying. “You need to go with. Need to get it.” The thing could be outside for all he knows, and they’re wasting time keeping a watch on him.

 

Stiles can almost hear the internal debate in Derek’s mind. He looks at Derek’s eyebrows, and they tell him that Derek is almost going to make a dumb decision; they’re expressive like that. “We have what we need. Deaton found something that suggests Yeti can be killed the same way as our kind.”

 

“Wolf’s bane bullets?”

 

“Allison is coming with, she’s got them. She won’t miss,” Scott tells him. “I’m going to go now.” He hops out of the window, his claws scratching through his skin already as he leaps.

 

“Don’t let me die or I’ll haunt you,” Stiles tells him shakily, knows he can hear even though he’s probably run far away already.

 

“He says he ‘wouldn’t doubt it’” Derek says, and Stiles wheezes a pained laugh. Thanking God that he can feel his fingers and toes again, he lets Derek grip his shoulder and lean him up against the boxspring of his bed.

 

“How do you feel?” Derek asks him.

 

Stiles knows he must have a psychic connection with the Yeti, and that’s the only reason he’s asking. Stiles would feel if the thing was angry; he’s gathered that much. But he’d like to think that Derek cares enough to ask about his well-being, because it makes him feel less pathetic about desperately wanting the town alpha, so he says, “I feel pretty good. Less popsicle-y than before, which is a plus. I can feel my toes again.” He adds, But I can tell Bucky is still angry because my chest burns.”

 

“Bucky.” Derek finally seems to recognize the nickname Stiles has been using, and narrows his eyes, looking unimpressed as always.

 

Stiles shrugs. “He looks like John Candy a little bit. But more fuzzy and ‘grr.’ And not nearly as cool as Uncle Buck.” Derek rubs at his eyes, exasperated, and Stiles smiles at him lazily before it fades away. “So if Bucky, if he has this psychic connection to my nerves to make me cold, what will killing him do, then?”

 

Derek pauses, as if he’d never considered that, and clamps his mouth shut. “I don’t know,” he tells him honestly. “I don’t know.”

 

Stiles steels himself and looks at the carpeted floor. “At least I lived a long life.” He wonders if he should call his dad, and decides against it. No matter how much he wants to hear his father’s voice, he never wants him to go through the stress.

 

Derek scowls at him and looks like he wants to smack him upside the head. “That’s not funny.”

 

“Yeah, I know, bad joke,” Stiles rubs at his eyes, and they hurt him because oh yeah, he’d almost forgotten about his concussion. And the bruise on the side of his face, he notes as he strokes the painful section. “I’m bad under pressure.”

 

“You’re bad at everything, all of the time,” Derek tells him, and Stiles tenses up.

 

“Let’s not make fun of Stiles okay? Since he could be killed by a mythical monster any minute. And I haven’t even had sex yet. My only kiss was with a person who was killed, oh God” He feels himself breathing heavier, and curls his head down into his lap through the heated blanket. “I’m going to die, aren’t I?”

 

“No,” Derek growls, and he’s closer now. He’s silent after that though, and Stiles grimaces.

 

“Good pep talk,” Stiles says. “After all, this is your fault. The least you can do is say something, anything.” He scowls the best he can, but it probably ends up looking like a mocking growly face.

 

“Like what?” Right, Stiles had almost forgotten Derek’s social ineptness. Or maybe Stiles is not making any sense, which seems logical because his head still isn’t as clear as it usually is.

 

“Like-- like,” Stiles splutters. He’s finding it hard to breathe now, like the fear has iced his lungs up, stopped them from working. Maybe it’s possible that he’s just frozen, too.

 

“Hey,” a broad hand shakes his shoulder, startles him into attention. He seems like he’s trying to calm him down, and the touch does that, but only minimally.  “You’ll be fine, Stiles. We won’t let anything happen to you.”

 

Stiles doesn’t feel very fine, and is frantically shaking his head, the blanket slipping over his arms and exposing him to the cool air in the house. He wants to scold Derek for not thinking of turning the heat on, but he can’t find any words right now. He tries, and his throat doesn’t work. His forehead crinkles in frustration and unmasked pain, and Derek’s eyes are wide, flickering all around Stiles’s face because he doesn’t know what to do. Derek says his name loudly, digging his fingers into the meat of his shoulder, before lowering his head so quick that it makes Stiles jolt out of instinct, but he doesn’t move after that because Derek is smashing them together, gripping onto the back of his head, smashing his face in between his palms.

 

Derek’s kissing him, and is moving to sit on his lap, placing his hands on the mattress behind him. Lord Jesus, if Derek thinks this was a way to calm him down or something, he was really wrong because it only makes his pulse skyrocket. Stiles releases a tiny moan that is torn from him, straight from his chest, and it escapes in their shared breaths. His freezing hands find Derek’s hips and his tongue is searching the warmth that it doesn’t have anymore-- it makes his teeth ache in his mouth. He thinks that maybe he’s been passed out this whole time from being thrown in the air last night, because Derek doesn’t seem real under his wandering fingertips, pressed desperately against his mouth and the room is swimming around them. Derek is kneeling just over Stiles’s lap, keeping just an inch over his body, holding himself up with one knee and keeping a gentle but forceful hand on Stiles’s neck to hold him still.

 

“Fuck,” Derek says against his lips, and it sounds broken. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry-- Stiles,” and Stiles grabs him by the hair to kiss him properly, melding them so he can force him to come closer, make sure he doesn’t leave. Stiles doesn’t know exactly sure what Derek is sorry for because his brain isn’t really working anymore, but he can feel the apology in his lips, the way he’s kissing him.

 

Derek keeps saying he’s sorry over and over, and Stiles has never heard desperation this prominent before since his father begging in the hospital for the doctors to save his mother. It’s like the kiss had broken him down. Stiles knows the feeling.

 

The chilliness crashes over him at once, and Derek stands him up with a grip on his back, trying to get his attention desperately. Derek catches hold of him by the arms when he screams in agony. The pain before had been numb compared to this; this was nearly tearing him apart from the inside out, and he writhes, like his body is attempting to free itself from the clutches of hurtpainhurtpain. Right in his chest is where it’s the worst, and he’s absolutely sure that he is dying so he yells Derek’s name, curling up and his throat is tearing from the abuse his vocal chords are suffering from.

 

Derek releases his grip on him with a howl, letting him fall to the floor because Stiles freezes so suddenly, his arms and lips and everything with skin develop ice deposits on them and then crackle and split with his thrashing limbs. Derek’s hands have frozen just from touching him, and he bends his fingers, letting them heal, his gaze snapping back in horror to Stiles. Stiles is completely blue, and his eyes change color as well the longer he lay there. When Stiles begins to grow talons of ice on his fingertips, his grip on the carpet rips them right off, leaving glass-sharp shards of ice on his floor.

 

Stiles’s body bends in an arc, and he screams once last time in agony as the claws rip through his skin, and he must be bleeding, he has to be-- then he’s still after there’s a snap, a release, and he’s shaking in exhaustion and unable to move his fingers. His eyelids tremble and he’s deaf for a long while even as Derek leans over him, and it’s clear that he’s yelling, yelling Stiles’s  name, but Stiles’s brain can’t process anything besides the fact that he needs to move off of the hard floor.

 

Derek helps to hoist him up, and when Stiles is finally on his feet, a bracing hand against his lower back, the room spins. His insides aren’t deathly cold anymore, and he realizes that it worked, Scott did it and he’s alive-- the combination of crippling relief that causes him to laugh loudly, and the fact that Derek isn’t supporting his stomach  makes him pass out, falling straight onto his face before Derek can catch him.

 

“Whoops,” he says when he wakes up with a groan, wrapped in what must be a kagillion blankets, pulled up to and over his nose. He makes a “blegh” noise because he’d hit his face on the way down and the bruise is pulsating with his heartbeat along with his upper head. And now he’s too hot. He kicks the blankets away from his feet because they make him feel claustrophobic all of a sudden, and he doesn’t like being rolled in those things like a Stiles-burrito.

 

Stiles’s breath hitches when he remembers why he’s wrapped up so much, and why Derek was in his room. It hits like a brick to the face when he realizes that Derek had kissed him before he’d almost died. His heart is going nuts and he lifts his hurting head to scan the room.

 

Derek is sitting on the edge of the bed reading a book, but his eyes keep flicking to Stiles when he’s spotted and Stiles can tell that Derek was never interested in what he was reading and had been waiting for him to wake up. There’s a nagging feeling that he stomps down, one that’s saying maybe Derek was concerned about him. It’s stupid of him, and he knows that, because he knows that Derek would have left if he didn’t hold a smidge of concern, but since he’s stubborn, he ignores that niggling feeling.

 

“Hey man,” Stiles says to him groggily, touches him softly on the knee because he can’t help but touch, now that they’ve already been intimately acquainted. “Do you think you could grab me some pain meds?”

 

Derek frowns. “You’re not dead, you know.”  Stiles sighs, and of course Derek was back to being cruel to him like nothing had happened.

 

“I almost did, man,” and yeah it’s totally too soon because there’s a phantom ache in his chest and he has to swallow harder than before as it makes him nervous, dealing with Derek when he’s looking at him so guarded. “Please, I’m just really, really fucking tired. And my head--” Derek points, his expression calm and neutral, and Stiles stops talking, follows it to the bed stand where there’s already two pills sitting with a circular glass full of water. “Oh-- oh thanks,” he picks up the water with weak fingers, sips the water and downs the capsules. It leaves a sour taste in his mouth.  “So the thing is dead, huh?”

 

“Allison shot it six times just to be sure,” Derek says, and it’s scary, how pleased he sounds by the fact. “Scott came by to check on you, but left right after because he had a date. Are you still cold?”

 

Stiles considers, wiggles his toes. “Not as much as before,” he decides. “Now I feel cold because it’s actually cold in here.” His fingers run up the blankets, brush against Derek’s, and he pulls it up his chest farther, ignoring his pounding heart from the brief contact.  

 

“That’s good. Your dad is still at work.”

 

Stiles is not sure exactly what that means, so hesitantly replies, “Okay. That’s nice.” Derek’s eyebrows tighten on his forehead. Stiles pauses and thinks of his next sentence. “Not that I’m complaining at all, but why are you still here, you know?”

 

There’s a dangerously guarded expression on Derek’s face. Stiles waits, and he seems to deflate with a sigh a few moments later. “I almost got you killed. Twice. It was my idea for the-- the Jeep and all of that.”

 

Stiles puts his hand up, because he’s remembering that he is supposed to be mad at him about that. And it shows how far gone Stiles is already, that one kiss has stolen his logical mind away from him and made him forget why he was in all of this shit in the first place. Derek doesn’t let him talk though, and continues. “I wan-- needed to make sure you were okay.” And it really looks like he’s trying hard to explain everything; Stiles is really appreciating that right now.

 

“And what about the-- you know,” Stiles feels heat spreading up his cheeks, sadly realizes that he’s thawed out enough to actually do that. Derek isn’t looking at him, and it feels a lot like avoidance, so Stiles talks to fill in the silence; he needs to know the truth. “That was something new. Why?”  

 

“I don’t know,” Derek tells him, which is probably the truth. “You were panicking.”

 

Stiles nods his head. “So is that a thing?”

 

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, is that something we can, do all of the time?” Stiles wrings his fingers together.

 

“What do you think?” Derek is staring at him, and isn’t giving him any answers which is totally frustrating. They have a stare-off, where both of them comically widen their eyes and shrug their shoulders. It goes back and forth until Stiles huffs a laugh, rubs at his eyes. He figures he might as well dive in headfirst.

 

“I’m game,” he says, lifting his head up to watch him Derek’s reaction.

 

Derek nods minutely, lips pursing tight. “Cool.”

 

Stiles glares at him, it lacks any heat. “You’re totally ruining the whole stigma I set up for you, you know. I imagined that all you do is say angsty words, not “cool,” and frown all of the time; it’s all I’ve seen. But you’re secretly domestic, and like to read and curl into a ball and nap, I bet.”

 

Derek looks confused, says, “I have no idea what you mean.”

 

Stiles hauls himself forward and kisses him with a palm on the back of his neck. Derek leans forward towards Stiles’s body, and he separates them to press his pointer finger against Derek’s lips. “I’ve got a concussion, shh,” and the next breath into the kiss is a huff of laughter; Stiles wants to look at Derek but is too occupied by his mouth. “And you still owe me a new car.”

 

“You can just drive mine,” Derek tells him, and it was probably meant to be an offhand comment, but Stiles freezes and pushes him back.

 

“You’re kidding me, right?”

 

“What?” Derek asks, and he seems hazier than Stiles is, and he’s the one with the injured brain.

 

Stiles presses into his chest. “You’ll let me drive the Camaro? The ‘Sex on wheels” mobile?” It feels like Christmas-- he laughs as he realizes it actually is Christmas day, and pinches Derek’s shoulder. “I was just going to have you pay for repairs, but oka-hey!” The end of his sentence is carried away when he’s hauled up the bed, and under the blankets, covered by Derek’s body.

 

“I should have guilt tripped you a long time ago,” Stiles says against his mouth, and Derek pokes him in the side.

 

Stiles hears him mutter darkly after an hour of nagging for Derek to make him hot chocolate, “should have let Bucky freeze your ass.” Stiles huffs and throws his pillow at Derek’s back with a grin as he heads into the kitchen.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was unbeta-d but I hope there weren't too many horrible mistakes! Leave comments, even if you hated it!  
> PS I was thinking of changing the title the "the cold runs through my veins but so do you" but I was wondering if it'd be too long, so comment and let me know what you think please!


End file.
